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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Recipe for Roasted Mushrooms with Garlic, Thyme, and Balsamic Vinegar

If you need a Phase One side dish that feels like a treat, these roasted mushrooms will do the trick!

(We're still counting down on the Month of Daily Phase One recipes, and these wonderful roasted mushrooms that I first posted in 2009 would make a wonderful Phase One side dish that feels like a treat. Even if you had to use dried thyme, I think these would still be really good.)

If I ever decided to make a list of "foods I'd never get tired of," there's no doubt that mushrooms would be on that list. This interesting mushroom recipe, where they're partly roasted and then tossed with garlic, fresh thyme, and balsamic vinegar, comes from Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop, one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. I think mushrooms are good no matter how you cook them, but roasting concentrates the mushroom flavor in a way that makes these mushrooms especially good. My grill is still packed away due to house renovations, but if I was you, I'd roast the mushrooms on the grill, then serve them over a steak or some grilled pork chops. If you're not in a grilled meat kind of mood, the mushrooms would make a great side dish no matter what you're serving.

I'm a big fan of thyme, which is an ornamental plant as well as a culinary herb. In this recipe I used silver thyme from my garden. Thyme goes well with many foods, including poultry, dried beans, beef, tomatoes, squash, lamb, fish, lentils, onions, pork, and of course mushrooms.

Washed and cut up mushrooms are tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper. I used brown Crimini mushrooms, which were especially good cooked this way.

Line a roasting pan with foil, then arrange mushrooms in a single layer and roast at 400F/200C for 15 minutes. (My mushrooms were definitely a bit crowded, but I wanted to use the toaster oven. Spread them out as much as you can.) If you're roasting mushrooms on a grill, I'd cook at medium high.

Mix the chopped thyme with minced garlic, balsamic vinegar, and a tiny dash of olive oil.

After mushrooms have cooked for 15 minutes, drain off any liquid, then toss mushrooms with thyme-garlic mixture. Place back on foil-covered pan and roast 10 minutes more. Serve hot, sprinkled with chopped fresh parsley if desired.

Preheat oven to 400F/200C or heat gas or charcoal grill to medium high. Wash mushrooms, pull out stems, and cut into halves (or quarters if the mushrooms are large.) Put mushrooms into bowl and toss with 2 T olive oil, salt, and fresh ground black pepper. Cover a roasting pan with foil, then arrange mushrooms on the pan in a single layer. (Spread them out as much as you can. For cooking on a grill, I'd probably use heavy foil to make a "pan" so the flame doesn't turn the bottom of the roasting pan black.)

Roast mushrooms 15 minutes. While mushrooms cook, finely chop fresh thyme, then mix with minced garlic, balsamic vinegar, and the tsp. of olive oil. (You could mix this right in the bowl you originally tossed the mushrooms with.)

After 15 minutes, drain off any liquid that has accumulated. (If you spread the mushrooms out well, the liquid will evaporate, but if yours are too crowded like mine, you'll have a little liquid to pour off.) Then toss the hot mushrooms with they garlic-thyme mixture. Arrange back on roasting pan and cook about 10 minutes more. Serve hot, sprinkled with chopped fresh parsley if desired.

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Oh boy! This is a winner of a recipe and I can't wait to make it! I was surprised, though, when you said you washed your mushrooms - I have always been told NOT to, because they absorb the water.Anyway, look forward to trying this ASAP!

Oh this does look good. I shall have to try it for sure. So I have been checking out your garden posts....grin. I am herb gardening in pots only this year so I will be interested in hearing your comments on your fresh herbs as you use them.

I'm going to buy more mushrooms today so I can make this again. My favorite balsamic vinegar for everyday cooking is Fini Balsamic Vinegar, although the Costco brand (the more expensive one of the two Costco varieties) is not bad at all.

Katrina, in recent years more and more cooks have been saying it's okay to wash mushrooms. Harold McGee and Alton Brown both did experiments and discovered the mushrooms absorb very little water.

I don't ever wash mushrooms either. I remember as a girl having to actually leave the house when my mother prepared mushrooms because the odor made me sick. Then I learned how to make mushrooms in France where they "peeled" the mushrooms. Now I realize they probably really were grown in manure in those days, but the habit has stayed with me now for 45 years. I even peel portobellos. After peeling, they are dry and do not have any bad odor when they hit the pan. All the cooking shows use a little brush to clean them, so I was wondering if I'm the only old fashioned mushroom peeler left.

I have a couple of varieties of thyme in my herb garden and can't wait to try this same mixture on other roasted vegetables too - potatoes, onions, summer squashes, tomatoes - as soon as I make it with mushrooms, of course!

Mushrooms are one of my favorite foods, too, and mushrooms and thyme are a magical combination. Many years ago we visited my husband's family's home village in Wales, where we stayed at a farm B&B. Our very hearty breakfast came with a huge pile of mushrooms sauteed with thyme -- and I've been hooked ever since.

I just did a mushroom "sauce" for ribeyes when Steve and I celebrated our 15th a couple of weeks ago. I'd like to do it again and I LOVE your version and photos. To me, mushrooms like this just make sense with meat. So delicious.

Wow, it looks lovely! I'm definitely going to try it. I tried your baked falafel- it was fantastic! It came out crispier than fried ones and (needless to say), I didn't have any left after a few minutes. They go away fast!Btw, please add "Kalyn's Kitchen" or something onto the photos. There's a lot of plagiarism (esp photos of food) in the internet.-Viji

Oh my, behind on comments again. Thanks for all the nice comments about this photo, yes it was the first photo I took in my new photo spot. Of course, the light was just perfect right then, which is something you can't really control, but I'm loving the new place to shoot photos. As for the comment about photo watermarks, I don't want to do that, I feel it detracts from the photo on my blog and it doesn't really stop people (unless you put it right across the center of the photo, which defeats the purpose.) I will just deal with any uncredited use of photos when I come across them.

Since you already know, I like your recipes, just wanted to tell you that I made this dish last weekend and it was amazing! Thank you so much for the recipe, it is one we will be enjoying again and again!

I made these mushrooms this morning but used Rosemary rather than Thyme and this is now my favorite way to eat mushrooms! Truly, they're absolutely marvelous and easy to prepare. I'm going to have to increase my budget mushroom to accomodate this new one. ;)

I could not quite believe when the realisation hit me that I have NEVER roast mushrooms in the oven (besides filled portobello) and I adore mushrooms. Crazy! Must try this recipe soon! Thank you for sharing!

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